Through Stained Glass
by karlaakamsloki
Summary: For Loki the comfort came from having a soulmate, knowing someone out there was waiting for him so they could grow old together. If only he could meet her already. For Darcy the comfort came from knowing the world was finally accepting people like her, the unmarked, the unlucky ones, the ones destined to die alone. If only people would accept she was fine with that.
1. Chapter 1

**All mistakes are mine**

* * *

A Mother's Perspective

Darcy- Newborn

Loki- 4 Years Old

Laura Lewis knew one thing about life, which was of course, the importance of the soul mate mark.

It didn't matter what the mark was, whether it something as simple as being born with your soul mate's name or the first words you would hear from their lips, what was important was that it would exist and it would be there. Her own mark was the name of her husband written in his messy handwriting just underneath her left breast.

Darcy Lewis was born just shortly after noon on a cool summer day with perfectly clear skin, not even a mole to mark it.

Laura wasn't afraid to cry about it and cry she did, with all the knowledge that her daughter would have a hard life ahead of her. The world was unkind to the unmarked because they were so rare, which made them both hated and pitied.

The doctor was kind, assured them that Darcy could have a normal life as long as she told no one about the lack of identifier on her skin. He also made a point to tell them about the rare marks, like people with fingerprints and marks that were solely based on the senses.

As Darcy grew so did the sudden realization that her daughter would never posses a mark.

The world would be unkind to her and Laura Lewis could only hope her daughter was strong enough to survive it.

Frigga Borson could be called nothing short of ecstatic when the adoption agency called her to pick up her son.

Loki Borson was as beautiful as she had seen in the pictures they sent her, it was safe to say that his adoption hadn't been a mistake and the pure delight on Thor's face when he met him made all the worrying worth it.

Frigga wanted nothing more than to embrace him but right away she knew he was a timid and hesitant child, as much as it pained her to think about she knew the lost of his parents would always rest heavily on his soul. Thor had not such hesitation and immediately embraced his new brother, to Frigga's relief Loki only tensed up a second before relaxing.

Her husband for his part treated Loki like had always been there, with all the demands and secret affections he showed Thor. Loki seemed eager to pleased him and slowly the spark in Loki's eyes returned to him.

Frigga remembered vividly how that first night she had helped Loki get ready for bed and she had finally seen his soul mate mark.

Beautiful written words in a deep purple color on his left shoulder, when she asked about them Loki eagerly told her how he couldn't wait to meet his soul mate.

"That person that's suppose to love me forever, no matter what." Loki had told her, with an already growing awe at the person who he yet to meet and fall in love with.

Frigga had given him a teary smile because she knew that finding your soul mate wasn't always cut and dry and that sometimes not even soul mates got their happy endings.

"It's in Spanish?" Frigga asked curiously when she inspected the mark closer.

"Yes, should I learn it?" Loki had asked, biting his lip in concern.

"If you want to." There was the possibility of a language barrier, there always was with soul mates.

Loki had nodded then and settled into his new bed, putting his right hand over his left shoulder as if for comfort.

When she left she could still hear him whispering the words marking his skin, almost like a goodnight prayer.

 _Pajaritos y fuentes, auras y brisas_ _  
_ _espetad ese sueño y esas sonrisas_

* * *

 **I wanted to keep an open story that I could update once in awhile, so I guess this is my warning that I will not be updating this regularly but as I find time for it and I get the muse to come to me. However, I do promise to finish it, I won't abandon it.**


	2. Chapter 2

Children at play

Darcy- 4 years old

Loki- 8 years old

Loki knew he wasn't supposed to abandon his mother's side but the man doing magic tricks on the end of the street was playing with fire, something that Loki didn't want to miss and so he ran for the man and the fire and completely ignored his mother's cries of reprimand.

The bigger kids, the ones allowed to be on their own during their annual block party, were already there laughing and clapping. They let him go to the front so he could see and Loki was spelled bound during the rest of the magic tricks, his mother came to drag him back and because the show was over he didn't protest.

His mother was scolding him for running off because it was dangerous, even if all the people they knew were there, when he heard the words printed on his back being said, or more accurately being sang.

Loki stopped walking and his mother knew immediately why, together they made their way towards the music and came upon a radio.

"I'm sorry, is the music bothering you?" There was a group of old people sitting around in a circle, the woman that asked looked nice and Loki shook his head, unable to say anything else.

"Not at all. It's a very nice song, we were wondering what it's called." His mother asked and Loki found her hand and squeezed it tight.

"It's an old lullaby song called a la nanita nana. My granddaughter loves it very much and I sing it to her before bed every night." The same old lady told them kindly, over sharing just like he learned that the grownups like to do.

Loki hesitated for a second before running up to the old lady and shoving up his t-shirt.

"Oh, I see." She told him in the same kind tone and Loki lower his t-shirt, embarrassed at his need to share his mark.

"We didn't know the words were a song." His mother explained as he grabbed her hand in comfort.

"Hey, maybe he could have been your granddaughter's soul mate. You know if it wasn't for the whole…" One of the old man in the circle said, waving his hands around.

Loki frowned because he wasn't sure what that meant.

"George! Please!" Another old lady in the circle said, while the old kind woman waved them both off.

"Please take the tape." The old kind woman told them.

"Oh we couldn't possibly…" His mother told her but Loki was looking at the radio with hope, it would be nice to not have to say the words to himself every night.

"Please my granddaughter has a million tapes lying around the house, it won't be hard for me to get my hands on another one." Loki needed not further encouragement and he took the tape from the radio with shaky hands.

"Thank you, I'm so sorry we didn't introduce ourselves I'm Frigga and this is my son Loki."

"It's nice to meet you, I'm Emilia Lewis. I hope you enjoy the song of your soul mate." Loki nodded his head and his mother thanked the old woman one last time before they left.

That night during bedtime his mother put the song on and for the first time in his young life Loki finally listen to the words on his mark like they were meant to be listen to.

* * *

"Darcy, your grandma is here!"

Darcy let out a squeal of delight before running out of her room and down the stairs, her small feet carrying her as fast as they could.

" _Abuelita_!" The greeting slip from her lips as her grandma picked her up for a hug.

"My beautiful Darcy." Her grandma told her softly and Darcy put her hand on her shoulder, happy to smell the perfume that was part of her grandma.

"You missed dinner, I had chicken nuggets and fries because it's Sunday and daddy said it was okay!" Mommy had said it was stupid to give her junk food but mommy was always mad about something and Darcy really wanted fries.

"That's great sweetie, why don't I put you down to bed and I'll tell you all about this little boy I met today?" Darcy squealed again because she loved her grandma's stories and there was always their song after the stories.

"Do you remember the party I told you I was going to go to?" Her grandma asked her as she tucked her into bed, Darcy nodded and settled into the nest of blankets.

"Well, there was this little boy and he asked me about your lullaby because he has the words on his back." Her grandma patted her hair before giving her head a kiss and Darcy suddenly felt very sleepy.

"He liked the song very, very much so I gave him the tape you recorded specially for me, I hope that's okay." Darcy nodded her head because if her grandma had given the little boy her tape then the boy must have really wanted it and her grandma was just being nice.

"Do you want to sing the song together?" Her grandma kept on touching her head and Darcy started singing with her sleepy voice.

" _A la nanita nana, nanita ea, nanita ea,_

mi Jesús tiene sueño, bendito sea…"


	3. Chapter 3

Teenage Dream

Darcy-17 years old

Loki- 21 years old

Loki was lying down in the living room couch, head firmly planted on Sigyn's lap while she massaged his head. He was in that blissful state of semi consciousness when Thor's loud footsteps sounded on the staircase.

"Loki!" If there was thing Thor loved, it was to loudly announce his arrival.

"Thor." Loki answered back in a normal tone, he refused to open his eyes for his brother because he knew what this was about and there was no use to have the same conversation they had not even two hours before.

"You said you and Sigyn would come to the party." Thor's tone was accusing, Loki cracked open an eye to see his brother standing over him.

"I said no such thing, don't put words in my mouth." Loki chuckled slightly when Sigyn slapped his head in warning, she had seen enough of their arguments to know not to interfere verbally but that didn't mean she never tried to put in her own views in the conversation.

"Come on brother, this is our last semester before we have to enter the real world." Thor put emphasis on 'real world' like they were doomed from then on, "Won't you enjoy it?"

"Thor you know that party is going to be crawling with freshmen, I will not _party_ with seventeen year olds. Underage girls are not my taste." Loki sat up, relaxing head massage now over.

"But they are mine!" A voice from the hallway screamed loudly and Loki almost groaned when Fandral's head popped up in the room.

"Fandral!" Sif, who was right behind Fandral, scolded just as loudly and Loki regretted from the millionth time not stopping Thor from giving them keys to their shared apartment.

"Leave, all three of you." Loki's voice came out more like a whine than the commanding tone he was going for, it didn't matter though because Sif was already ushering his brother and his ridiculous friend out the door.

"Thor is right you know, you should be enjoying the rest of the semester." Sigyn told him, playing devil's advocate as she often did when it came to his arguments with Thor.

"Or I could be focusing on keeping my grades up and graduating." Thor's over dramatization about graduating was too much, they both already lived independent lives. The only real difference after graduation would be that instead of going to class they would be going to work in their father's company. Which they already kind of did anyway.

"Or you could do that I suppose." Sigyn conceded with an amused smile.

"Besides, when I have ever gone to a party willingly?" Never was the unspoken answer, because there was no chance that he could actually enjoy sitting in the corner of a crowded room with a warm beer, wondering what have become of his life.

"Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you could have met your soul mate at this party?" Sigyn asked him, a smug tilt to her lips that he didn't like.

"I will not be meeting my soul mate at a party, thank you very much." Loki said, affronted at the very question, he couldn't begin to imagine in what context a child's lullaby would be sung in a party with drunk teenagers.

"It could happen, besides don't all the professionals say most people meet their soul mates in the least thought of places?" Sigyn knew there was only one way to riled him up and she loved to exploit it.

"But a party, a party?" He was dismay by the thought, no one wanted to tell the story of how they met their soul mate while someone puked on the steps next to them.

"A party." Sigyn confirmed before bursting out laughing at his expression.

"How about your soul mate? Would you want to meet him at a party?" Loki told her, gesturing to the name tattooed on her wrist.

"If it happens, it happens." Sigyn shrugged and Loki scoffed before settling his head back on her lap.

"Well I know for a fact I will not be meeting my soul mate at a party, if she's anything like me then she will not enjoy those sort of things."

* * *

"DARCY LEWIS, GET BACK IN THE CAR OR I SWEAR TO GOD."

Darcy closed her eyes and let the wind fly across her face enjoying the sensation, her hair flew in all directions and her friends laughed from inside the car at her antics. James, the driver, was still shouting for her to get her head back inside the car because he really didn't want to get pull over, not with all the alcohol and drugs he had in the trunk.

She pulled her head back inside, her friends' laughter ringing in her ears as they all tried to fix her hair at the same time. Darcy put her hands over her face and told them to stop touching her hair in between giggles, she was already a little tipsy from their pre-party get together and she felt like she was floating on air.

They made it to house party without police interference and James looked like he was willing to kiss the floor in thanks.

"Dude, so cool that we got invited!" Her friend Shelly shouted from besides her and Darcy laughed because of course they got invited, they were hot upcoming freshmen girls and they had an open invitation to any party and lord knew she had tons of sorority girls coming to her during orientation week trying to lure her into their sororities with booze and parties.

Though she could understand her friend's excitement in this one since Tony Stark himself was hosting it, the invitation had been vague enough that it kind of invited the whole school so everyone who wanted to go to the party of the century was there. Even if they didn't go to Culver yet, technically speaking.

The place was a mansion and it was packed wall to wall with people, which probably made it seem smaller than what it really was. Her and her friends had no trouble locating the alcohol since there was enough in every room they went into to drown a large army, it was nice to know Tony Stark was considerate towards his guests.

Every large room had its own speakers but the largest room hosted the DJ in charge of the music, the same music bled from one room to the other effortlessly and a conga line had formed that went around every room as if to prove it. Darcy wanted to join it but her friends insisted on claiming their own bottle of vodka first and getting their drink on before starting to dance.

They decided to drink and dance in the main room since it was bigger and little less crowded thanks to the people wanting to explore the mansion, the DJ had yelled over the microphone that Tony Stark was willing to let them inspect every nook and cranny and not to worry if they broke anything.

Darcy wondered who Tony Stark was trying to piss off.

A blond guy passed besides her, grabbing her waist softly to move her out of the way, Darcy watched while she dance as he talked to the DJ before going back the same way he came. The music changed suddenly, a harsh music that would have been better heard in a battle field than a Tony Stark party.

The blond dude came back to the middle of the make shift dance floor with three other guys, they left behind a black haired girl who was shaking her head in what looked like dismay. The dance floor cleared for them and then they were dancing this weird dance that seemed to consist mostly of stomping the floor and waving their hands in the air, one of the guys even did a front flip without hands, it was all perfectly coordinated.

The dance finished suddenly and there was a moment of stunned silence before everyone in the room started clapping and whistling, the dancing guys took it graciously before retreating back towards their friend. Rhianna started pumping from the speakers and Darcy shook her head to it clear from the weirdness of the moment and went back to dancing with her friends.

The room was getting uncomfortably full and Darcy fanned her face to signal her friends that it was time to move forward, she found the open doors leading outside into the pool and noticed it was just as full outside as it was inside. There were no speakers outside though and the noise was mostly people talking over each other, the ringing in her ears made her walk over to an empty patch of grass far away from the pool as she tried to regain her hearing.

"Darcy, you okay?" Shelly asked from behind her and Darcy gave her a thumps up.

"Fine, just sweaty and my ears hurt a little." The rest of her friends stood around them, laughing and sharing a different bottle of vodka.

"Mine too." Shelly told her in sympathy just as someone in the group handed her the bottle for a shot, Shelly took it and passed the bottle to her, Darcy hesitated for a second before taking at least three shots worth of vodka. Her friends whooped around her.

They were standing around talking when Darcy saw the bright light coming from deeper into the woods surrounding the mansion, drawn to it like a moth to a flame she followed it and ended up in a clearing with two guys sitting in front of what look like burning logs.

"You have found the circle, please take a seat." One of the guys that was casually rolling a joint told her, she drunkenly took a seat even though she had no idea what was going on.

"Are you gonna share?" James asked from besides her and the guy rolling the joint dutifully passed him an already rolled up joint.

"I'm Scooter and this is Jay." The guy definitely looked like a Scooter and Darcy giggled at the thought of him riding his namesake. Jay, the guy rolling the joints, gave her a high nod of the head and passed her a joint.

They sat silently, just smoking pot and laughing hysterically at nothing, before a different group stumbled across them.

"Dancing dude!" Darcy yelled, drunkenly giving him a hug when he sat down on the empty space next to her.

Dancing dude laughed and told her his name was Thor and introduced the rest of his friends, Darcy nodded obediently but didn't actually listen to anything he said. Scooter who was silently sitting in front of her in the makeshift campfire gestured at their newly formed group before talking.

"So…let's talk soul mates." Talking about soul mates was like talking about the weather and Darcy wasn't surprised it was the first topic of conversation.

Everyone excitedly shoved up pants and shirts to show off their marks, Darcy stayed where she was making no movement because the circle would eventually get to her and there would be nothing to show. Shelly gave her a worried look as she lower her shoulder strap but Darcy shook her head and relaxed, she had grown used to the fact that she didn't have a mark and had stopped being ashamed of it a long time ago.

Dancing dude was showing the mark on his upper arm that proudly displayed 'Jane' which was written in a messy yet pretty font, he looked over the moon about it even when entire group kept teasing him over the fact it was such a common name.

"So how about you sweet cheeks?" Scooter asked her and Darcy shrugged before taking another drag of her joint.

"I don't have one." She told him clearly and calmly, having said the same thing over a million times before.

There was moment of stunned silence around the campfire because according to the statistics they were shown in school, the chance of bumping into someone who didn't have a soul mate mark was under five percent. A ton of people never met one in their lives, Darcy knew they were groups out there trying to find people without a soul mate mark, not that it was hard or anything since people had to register their mark on their birth certificates to minimize the chance of fake marks popping up. Though there were plenty of countries who didn't adhere to this rule making global records impossible.

"You don't have one?" Jay seemed to pull himself out of his high to glance at her, perplexed look on his face.

"Nope, I came out all clean." As if to prove her point she stuck her arms, the most common places to have soul mate marks and let them see how bare they were.

"Holy shit, it's a pleasure to meet you." Scooter got up and came around the circle to give her a hug, she was confused until he went back to sit back in his spot.

"Thanks?" She was only looking at Scooter, who had an intense look on his face.

"Do you understand how lucky you are?" Scooter pointed a finger at her, "Do you understand how much I wish I didn't have a mark? I heard horror stories about soul mates. My cousin's soul mate is in jail, do you know what for? Murder, the dude has this killing urges he can't suppress or some shit like that so my cousin can only see him through metal bars once a week and she loves him and because he's her soul mate she can't stop loving him, it's a shitty deal and I don't want it to happen to me. I don't want the person I don't even get to choose to be some rapists or something, I want to be able to choose but I can't, I can't settle with a nice girl somewhere because I might meet my soul mate and it will all go to shit."

Darcy could only stared at him because usually she got the pity looks, no one had been jealous of her before because of her lack of a mark. Dancing dude next to her clear his throat as if to argue but nothing actually came out of his mouth.

There was nothing to argue anyway, Scooter was right about the horror stories. There were bad people in the world and they got soul mates just like the good people did, whatever or whoever had given them marks hadn't excluded the scum of the earth.

Darcy always wondered why she was one of the few exceptions. She wondered what she had done in a previous life to deserve the punishment.

Scooter gave her another jealous look before going back to his blunt and Darcy wondered when the tide starting changing in her favor.


	4. Chapter 4

Contemplation

Darcy-21 years old

Loki- 25 years old

Loki clapped politely with the rest of the people in the church, privately admiring how the cream colored dress complimented Sigyn's skin so well.

He moved quietly from the church to the adjoining hall for the reception, he had decided against bringing a date because it felt impolite to bring a stranger to one of his best friends' wedding. Thor had been invited as well but he was somewhere else with Sif as his date, Loki had no wish to talk to Sif if he could avoid it.

He made polite conversation with the people at his table while dinner was served, he watched attentively while the first dance was performed and he politely refused to go into the throng of men hoping to catch the garter belt.

The reception was finally winding down when Sigyn came to look for him.

"Congratulations." Loki tipped his champagne flute and Sigyn gave him a soft, dazed smile as she took a seat next to him.

"I want to thank you for coming, I know how much you-"She stopped herself, clearly unsure on how to keep going.

"I would never dream of not coming, you are a dear friend and I value our friendship very much." Even if the jealousy of her having her soul mate before him made him burn inside, there was a childish voice reminding him that he should have met his soul mate by now.

"You'll find her Loki, she's out there somewhere." Sigyn told him encouragingly, Loki gifted her a weak smile.

"I'm sure she is." But the conviction of it was slowly dying inside him, because what if she wasn't?

He danced with Sigyn, a slow song that made his heart ache. There was nothing else he could say to her as she was swept away from him for a dance with her father.

He left then, returned to his apartment overlooking the city and poured himself a glass of scotch as he contemplated the twinkling city lights.

Loki was tired of waiting, tired of not having the person who he had been waiting for his whole life, the person that was promised to him through some of sort of magic modern science still couldn't explain.

He closed his eyes and tried to picture her, tried to picture a faceless woman kissing his cheek, caressing his neck and murmuring words of love into his ears. He would always picture her with dark hair, not black like his but a dark brown that would shine like gold in the sunlight, soft plump lips that he could trace with his fingers and maybe her eyes would be the color of the sapphire resting in the engagement ring his birth parents had left to him. _Her_ ring, a ring that was still tucked away in his dresser.

He had succumbed once and tried one of the endless websites where people could try to figure out how their soul mates would look like, after endless hours of surveys he had ended up with a picture of a generic looking woman that met all the specifications he had always dreamed of. It had been a waste of time, the end result hadn't told him anything new except that he had a weakness for brunettes with fair skin.

The picture was somewhere in his home office, tucked away with all the other useless information he had gathered about soul mates through the years. At the end f it, all the knowledge on the subject hadn't granted him his soul mate and the hours wasted rested heavily on his chest.

She was out there somewhere, living her life without him and maybe even living it happily with someone else. The thought made his stomach churn and he took a drink of his scotch to wash the sensation away.

Loki was so engrossed in his musings that he completely missed his phone vibrating inside his pocket, the call going straight to voice mail.

* * *

"Jane! No one is picking up on the number you gave me! Are you sure it's the right number?" Darcy called out from her spot in the van, Jane was running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get readings with a machine that looked like a pager.

"I don't know! That's the number they gave me!" Jane didn't even seem out of breath as she kept running, which Darcy thought was impressive since she hadn't seen the boss lady eat anything else but pop-tarts and coffee.

Not the healthiest of diets.

"We shouldn't even be calling anyway, it's late." Darcy checked her watch and whistled low, because it was super late to call anywhere, never mind the office that provided their funding.

"Let me see." Jane ripped the phone from her hands and double checked the number before redialing and handing it back to her. "It's a seven not a one!"

"My bad! It's still super late though!" Jane waved her off as she started running back and forth again with her pager, Darcy dutifully stayed on the line until it, that call too, went to voice mail. This time though the voice mail told her she was calling the right place, she left a short message about Jane and her bank account before hanging up and going back to watch Jane run around.

Working with Jane was exhausting, the girl just didn't know when to quit and typically she wouldn't care to stay up until dawn but Jane didn't want to do fun things like drink and go skinny dipping. No, Jane wanted to go out in the middle of the desert and do science with a good chunk of math that would put anyone into a deep sleep, that stuff was better than ambien.

If it wasn't for the fact that she needed the six credits Jane was giving her to graduate, Darcy would have bailed a long time ago.

"Jane! We need to go, you have that meeting tomorrow!" Jane hadn't told her much about the meeting except that some private company wanted to fund her research, it would apparently give them information to built machines to make better satellites.

Jane stumbled, threw a curse at the sky and slowly made her way back to the van all the while staring at the pager thingy.

"You are going to shower right? And maybe comb your hair?" Darcy asked her hopefully while she drove them back to their research lab that was once a gas station.

"I showered." Jane protested weakly, because they both knew that Jane left everything in the dust if it wasn't science related.

"Yeah, like five days ago. You have to make a good impression, this guy wants to give you tons of money, so maybe you can wear clean clothes too?" Darcy wondered what Jane would do once she met her soul mate, they all been taught in school about how strong the bond was that nothing else mattered for a good while after.

Darcy thought maybe Jane's soul mate was science itself but the words on her back disproved that.

 _It is the biggest of pleasures meeting the woman that will mean everything to me._

It was sweet as hell but Jane seemed uninterested in it, it wasn't science and therefore Jane didn't care.

"Yeah." She replied, still staring at the pager thingy and Darcy rolled her eyes as she parked the van.

"Shower, then bed. I'll wake you up at ten." Sometimes her job as assistant doubled as babysitter.

Jane made a noise, almost falling from the van when she opened the door and stepped out wrong.

"Give it." Darcy put her hand on her hip and gave Jane her best glare, Jane gave her a stubborn look before surrendering the pager and stomping to her trailer.

Yes, sometimes she wondered if the six college credits were worth it. That particular night they weren't but tomorrow when she woke up and remembered how close she was to graduating, then it would be a completely different story.

And she would be a liar if she didn't say that Jane's weird tics were starting to become kind of endearing.


End file.
